


Stray Dog Blues

by Nakimochiku



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 09:58:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14162319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakimochiku/pseuds/Nakimochiku
Summary: In which Gojyo wonders which stray was saved that night in the rain.





	Stray Dog Blues

__ I know who I am when I’m alone  
__ I’m something else when I see you.   
_ You don’t understand, you could never know  
_ __ How easy you are to need. 

_ It will come back -- Hozier _

Routine is at once a new and old concept to Gojyo. Six months ago, routine was wake up in the late afternoon, smoke until dark, crawl to a club or casino or hole in the ground to drink. Find some chick to fuck, crawl home at dawn and do it all over.

Now routine is precisely the same except there's someone there to open the door if he fumbles too much with the keys, warm lights already on and a lingering dry heat in the air from the previously unused oven. Someone to say, “how unlike you, Gojyo, I didn’t expect you for another hour.” and help him into a kitchen chair for a late dinner.

Hakkai smiles warm as fire and sunlight when Gojyo comes home early enough for dinner together, like Gojyo is an outside cat or feral dog that has limited time or affection for people; Hakkai is always delighted with the rare opportunity for his extended company.  Something about it that Gojyo can't name makes his toes curl in delight, like cool grass on warm summer days. His food is flavourful and tasty, even if he makes things Gojyo’s never had before, doesn't even know the name of, and his pleased smile when Gojyo tells him so makes something like carbonation bubble in his chest. Living like this is odd, but so good he can't remember how he did it before.

His sofa bed is always made up when he crawls back home, and as he sinks into freshly laundered sheets and a fluffed pillow, some sleepy sense of self preservation perks and reminds him not to get too comfortable, not to let the rug be yanked out from under him. Not to get hurt.

_ Too late,  _ Gojyo thinks, curling up small, breathing heavy. Hakkai’s already given him a taste for this, whatever this is. Too late.

Then he's waking up to fresh coffee and a gentle, “Good morning Gojyo, sleep well?” And he can't remember why he was supposed to be careful. He sips his coffee at the table, still in last night's rumpled clothes, hair hanging into his face. He listens to Hakkai putter around, eying the gloomy depths of his mug, and only starts when Hakkai’s cool fingers slide over his bared shoulder. Gojyo looks up to find him holding the coffee pot, and obediently holds put his mug for a refill, thinks  _ he always knows what I need _ , before that old instinct tightens his belly in warning. “Are you feeling alright, Gojyo?” Hakkai murmurs, cool fingers moving up to his forehead to brush his hair away, testing for the heat of fever.

_ If you ever leave me I won’t know what to do, _ Gojyo thinks, looking up into the warmth of Hakkai’s gaze and wanting to curl there.  _ You think that I saved you when really it was the other way around, _ Gojyo leans into his touch, purrs softly beneath his breath, somewhere else entirely while Hakkai watches him with affection and vague confusion. “Think you made a mistake, picking up a stray like me,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

But Gojyo isn't in the mood to answer, thoughts and emotions boiling into a mess in his belly. Hakkai is perfect, and one day when he's out grown Gojyo, when he no longer finds him cute and fun to play with, he’ll be tossed away. He tries to steel himself for the loss, harden himself against the hurt. But there will be no saving himself.  _ If I'd known you were gonna be this to me, I never would have picked you up _ . The small voice of caution and self awareness replies  _ you wanted him to be this to you. That's why you picked him up. _

“You're no stray Gojyo.” Hakkai’s thumb strokes over his cheek, and his touch feels so good he wants to lean into it forever, and damn near forgets that he's touching his scars.

“Maybe not right now but--”  _ where’ll I be when you’re gone? I forgot how to be wild, you tamed me.  _ “They say kindness is cruelty, to strays you ain't gonna keep.”

“You're no stray, Gojyo,” Hakkai repeats firmly. “Because you're here. You have a home.”  _ You’re mine. _

Gojyo smiles wryly, twists to kiss Hakkai’s cool palm with all the reverence of a nearly domesticated beast.  That's precisely the problem.

But days go on, long and languid, and Gojyo can't help but lower his guard. The longer things stay the same, the quieter the voice of self preservation gets, muted beneath the voices of simple pleasure and comfort and a want so old and deep he’d forgotten he ever had it. He gets comfortable, irritates Hakkai just for the pleasure of his reprimands, laughs with him, welcomes his cool hands in his hair, on his arm, at his back, stable.

He doesn't ever want to give this up. He's never had it before, whatever it is that Hakkai's giving him when he washes dishes in the midafternoon, tattered old apron around his waist and tea towel thrown over his shoulder, humming under his breath before he turns to say, “Gojyo the kettle’s boiled, can you finish the tea for me?”, but he wants to hold it between his palms to keep it forever.

Whatever it is, it is the lights in the kitchen being turned on in the evening so Hakkai can read, real flowers blooming in the patch of earth by the front step, the flap of laundry in the breeze. Gojyo realizes abruptly he would die without it. Despite his best intentions, all his instincts, many walls built brick by brick to keep precisely this from happening, he would die if he couldn't open the living room window, squint into the sunlight at Hakkai’s half turned back and hear, “Good morning Gojyo. Or should I say good afternoon?”

So he leans on the sill and lights a cigarette, staring at the flex of Hakkai’s shoulders beneath his shirt as he drapes laundry out on the line, and carefully strings his thoughts together, collects them bead by bead. “You played yourself.” He says, and Hakkai pauses and turns and looks so beautiful in bright yellow sunshine Gojyo’s eyes hurt but he can't look away. “Dunno if this is what you expected, but you ain’t ever gonna get rid of me now.” He takes a drag of his cigarette. Breathes out slowly so for a brief moment Hakkai’s face is hazy. “No matter where you go, I would follow you.” Like a stray, whipped dog coming back for more.

Hakkai laughs like a bell, full bellied and delighted. “Gojyo, I honestly would not have it any other way.”


End file.
